The clatter of tiny feet

An evening with a good book is one of the easier sorts to accommodate even if accompanied by the rhythm of a plastic pen being firmly deposited on a plastic topped table as each stitch in the deckchair of time was duly recorded on the chart. It wasn't the only clatter, though.

From the corner of my eye a movement distracted me from an episode in French history which did them no favours, of which there are just so many. A cockroach clattered across the room and scurried behind the sofa, upon which stitches were being steadily applied.

Moving the sofa discovered nothing.

A while later the offending creature made a bolt across the floor and with obvious lack of planning made directly for the corner between the wall and the breakfast bar. One thing that is obvious about living in a minimalist mansion flat is that, unlike home, there are no gaps under the skirting boards or anywhere else for that matter.

I took the right flank, wine glass (plastic to reduce the risk of harm) in hand, whilst the left flank was covered by my able assistant with shopping list at the ready.

Captured by plastic wineglass, shopping list and iPhone

A series of deft moves which had William Hanna and Joseph Barbera drawn them could have produced a four minute gem in the hands of Fred Quimby and the cockroach was almost caught.

Alas, the pair of us on our knees engaged in the capture of a cornered cockroach was neither terribly elegant, efficient or swift.

Eventually we had him, her, it or whatever it chose to be at this time safely under arrest.

Being of a fragile disposition I felt that being trampled underfoot was hardly a suitable end for so valiant a foe. However, remembering a scientific article that said you can drop a cat from any height and it'll land on it's feet because it's body shape and covering ensures that it never attains a terminal velocity that would harm it upon landing, I elected to release it back into it's natural habitat from the balcony.